Twelve Names That Weren't Hers
by planet p
Summary: AU; twelve lives that weren't hers. Various pairings: Miss Parker/Angelo, Miss Parker/Tommy, Miss Parker/Sam, Miss Parker/Thomas, Jarod/OC


**Twelve Names That Weren't Hers** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

1.

_Magdalena_

When she's older, she finds out about her mother's plan; the plan to rescue the children the Center had stolen and return them to their families, or send them on their way to a safe harbour.

She believes in what her mother started, and she thinks it'll be okay if she continues her work, but then she finds out about Ethan, and she knows he needs her help more than those others.

She trusts him because he's her brother, but he tells her father what she's been doing, and what she's planning to do.

It gets him their trust, and a good job, and her a trip to the Renewal Wing.

* * *

2.

_Maimi_

As a teenager, she calls herself Miami. It's only a small rearrangement of the letters of her name.

She hates her life so she makes numerous attempts to run away from boarding school, but she's always brought back.

As an adult, she returns to the Center. She doesn't want to work for some self-absorbed company, so she decides on a plan of sabotage and escape.

She meets Jarod, and remembers that they'd once been friends – for a short while, as kids – and she promises to help him escape, too. It'll be much better if she has someone to escape with, but Jarod won't go unless she promises to take Angelo, so she concedes to including the 'halfwit' in their plans. (Jarod is always upset when she calls Angelo halfwit, but he never says anything, as though he half hopes Angelo won't know to take offence if no one's expressing offence.)

They _do_ escape, and it's awesome for a while, until Jarod explains to her that he likes her, and she's scared because she likes him, too. So she pretends to like Angelo instead, but she's never really happy, but it seemed like a good plan at the time.

It's only when there's a child in the picture that she realises that it probably wasn't such a good idea, after all. She knows she stuck, but it's only her fault, and she has to watch Jarod meet someone else and fall in love.

She thinks back to the moment she agreed to taking Angelo with them, and thinks that it had been a mistake on both their behalves.

If they'd only gone alone, they'd be happy now, happy together. (Except, sometimes, she thinks Jarod _is_ happy, but it's too hurtful to hold on to, so she pretends the thought never occurred to her.)

* * *

3.

_Maisha_

She's a dancer on the stage; she'd always liked dancing as a girl. Like her mother. Her mother's gone now, though she knows she lives on through her, and through her dancing; through her love of dancing.

Her best friend is a dancer, too, but she dies one day of a drug overdose. Maisha doesn't give up dancing, but goes into it more rigorously; she raises money for a charity which helps get drug-affected youths back on their feet, and on the way to mending.

She's a wonderful dancer, and it's made her famous.

Until she is kidnapped one night, and no one hears of her again.

* * *

4.

_Maisie_

She goes into law, but what sort of a name is Maisie for a lawyer, so she changes her name to Margaret, and only her family, or closest of friends, know that her name is really Maisie, or call her by it.

In the course of her work, she meets some people she'd rather have not, and she starts to hear voices in the back of her mind, telling her things, so many awful things.

She's put on medication, but none of it helps; it only makes things worse, and she has to leave her job.

She's put in a mental facility, later, and that's where she meets Edna.

She's glad that she at least has a friend.

* * *

5.

_Makana_

She knows that she has a brother that she's never met, until one day she meets Ethan. He's only a little boy, and she knows that if she takes him away from the Center now, she can still help him.

She doesn't know what it is she wants to help him with, but she takes him with her one night, and she finally has a family.

That's all that she's ever wanted, after all.

* * *

6.

_Mary_

She's walking home from school one day, when a man stops to give her a lift, but he doesn't take her home. She'd thought he was a Sweeper – the Sweeper who normally picked her up after school must have been late, or maybe he'd had car trouble – but she should have known he wasn't by the car he was driving.

She goes to live with Ben in Maine and becomes a vet, like he is, and later she meets a nice man and they are married.

She doesn't remember that, in the beginning, Ben wasn't her father, and she's glad that he is.

* * *

7.

_McCord_

Her wedding to Tommy Takada was a beautiful ceremony, but, years later, she finds that she's grown bored, and she starts up a relationship with her driver, Sam. She doesn't know his last name – Tommy would, of course; he's paying him, after all – but she's never asked, and Sam doesn't say. She kind of likes it that way.

She'll never leave Tommy for Sam, but it's a nice thought, a nice daydream for when Tommy's late getting home when he'd promised he'd be on time, when he'd rung her and told her that he'd definitely be on time, this time.

They've two children, daughters, both of them; five and nine. Tania is the 9-year-old and Laurie the 5-year-old; they're beautiful children, like their mother – Tommy's words, always like their mother – but she thinks they look more like their father, but she's adamant he'd only laugh if she told him she thought he was beautiful.

Sam isn't beautiful or delicate, and rarely talkative, but maybe that's the most of her attraction to him. He doesn't try to complicate things with promises that he'll only end up breaking. He's rough, but never with her, and she supposes they have a connection that doesn't need words, that words would only scramble up in confusion and destroy.

When she finds out that Tommy has been seeing another woman, she takes each of the children's hands and walks them straight out to the car where Sam is waiting after her brief phone call. She doesn't tell Sam why she's leaving, she doesn't even tell him that she's leaving, but she's leaving with him.

Later, she'll try to explain it.

* * *

8.

_Meadow_

She works as a nurse in D.C. Same first letter; different state.

She can be happy about her job, sometimes, she even thinks.

She'd wanted to be a nurse since she was young, just like Annie – a short-lived childhood friend whose name she can barely remember – and now she is.

She drives a good car – well, it still starts every morning – and lives in a not-too-bad apartment, though pets aren't allowed, so she doesn't have a pet. Instead, she visits the same pet shop every week to spend some time with the rabbits there, kept behind glass.

Sometimes, she feels the same way they do, she thinks. Her life is like their lives; she's kept on display for others to see, but she can never reach out and touch any of the spectators; there's an invisible – but, her hands tell her, tangible – wall in the way.

She feels like she's not really living, like there's something important missing. She makes a decision to be more proactive, to go out more, to meet new people. She'd going to be married one day, and she's going to have children.

They'll fix what's missing inside of her, she's sure.

* * *

9.

_Melesse_

She's older than she would have liked when she becomes chairwoman of the Center, but now that she's in charge of things, people are reluctant to say so. (She could just have them disappear and no one would be the wiser.)

She doesn't marry, and she doesn't have children, but she has herself a clone made. She names her Ruth, and decides that Ruth is going to have kids for her.

Ruth is 15 and doesn't like the idea, but she's one girl against a whole company.

In a way, Ruth's plight reminds Melesse of her own struggles in life, but she's not sympathetic towards the girl; she put up with it, so she knows the girl will, also.

Ruth develops a silent hate for her, but it's never silent in Melesse's mind (and she hates Ruth back as much as the girl hates her; Ruth who was able to have kids).

The children are taken away from Ruth, and she tells them that she is their mother.

One day, they will run the Center.

* * *

10.

_Melissie Irene_

She grows up to join Jarod's retrieval team, but then she meets Thomas, and she knows he's going to be the one she marries some day. He's her other half.

She stops Brigitte from killing him, with a bullet in the head.

It's only later that she finds out about the baby that could have been born.

Sydney doesn't tell her exactly whose baby it would have been, though he is told by someone else.

She does marry Thomas, and they move to Oregon, and they have three children.

Jarod is brought back to the Center, but escapes again. She smiles when she is told over the phone, but it's not her life anymore.

She has a new life.

* * *

11.

_Meng_

They try to make her better, but they only make her worse. It's the same thing that happened to Timmy, and something went wrong. She's not the same as Timmy – he has a new name now, it is Angelo – but they tried anyway.

She wonders if she'll get a new name, but it never happens. She remains Meng. Sometimes she calls herself Mong, or Mang, but nobody notices, or else, nobody cares. She's only rambling, it's all just incomprehensible anyway.

Angelo is her best friend, and she wonders if it would be okay if they were girlfriend and boyfriend. He wouldn't tell, would he?

She sits down with him to talk about it, and his response is: Of course he wouldn't tell. He doesn't speak directly, but she hears some of the words jumbled and distorted in her mind, and that's only ever how he speaks to her anyway.

She's happy then, and it doesn't matter what sort of 'procedures' they do to her, because they'll never do anything to her heart; they'd never be able to find it because to them it isn't real.

It's real to Angelo and her, though.

* * *

12.

_Merle_

She isn't really a schoolteacher, or a school nurse, or a counsellor at a hospital, or a youth mentor at an outreach centre, but, sometimes, she is.

She works in recruitment with Sydney's brother, Jacob, and, at the end of the year, she's always given a nice vacation somewhere exotic and warm.

If it wasn't her taking the kids, she justifies, it would have been someone else; most likely one of their rivals. She's seen what their rivals have done to those that they've taken, and, over the years, she's leant to hate them.

She knows she's doing the right thing.

* * *

_Lame, but thanks for reading._


End file.
